


Forgiveness

by DarkQueenSigyn



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, F/M, Loki becomes an Avenger AU, Pietro survives AU, Various other Avengers are mentioned but don’t appear, hurt/comfort sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-22
Updated: 2018-03-22
Packaged: 2019-04-06 10:12:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14054676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkQueenSigyn/pseuds/DarkQueenSigyn
Summary: Takes place during the early events of Captain America: Civil War. (AU where Loki is an Avenger and Pietro is alive)Following the disastrous results of the mission in Wakanda, Wanda receives some much-needed consolation from an unlikely source.





	Forgiveness

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this little oneshot about two years ago, not very long after Civil War was first released. While my feelings on the MCU have become more than a little mixed, I still have a lot of love for these characters and this rare ship in particular, and since my other ScarletFrost fic has gotten a lot of love, I figured it was high time I posted this one as well. Enjoy!

“Wanda?”

She looked up at the sound of her name, her train of thought interrupted. Loki was standing in the doorway; so incredibly tall, and yet he looked smaller than usual without all the armour.

He waited until he saw her nod before he stepped into her room, keeping a respectable distance. Despite everything, Wanda seemed to bring out the princely, Asgardian manners he had been taught so long ago.

She met his gaze, and there was an exchange between them that didn’t need spoken words.

Are you alright?  
About as alright as I can be.

Loki still seemed hesitant, and Wanda breathed a sigh as she motioned for him to sit down next to her.

“Don’t do that,” she murmured.

“Do what?”

“Hover. Like I might explode if you get too close.”

He understood, and was a bit less cautious as he approached her, until it only felt natural to sit down beside her on the edge of her bed.

“Wanda…what happened today, it wasn’t–”

“It was my fault,” she cut him off, turning to look at him directly. “Everyone has been telling me differently, trying to make me feel better. But that does not change the fact that innocent people are dead, because of me.”

For a moment, Loki was at a loss as to what to say to her. There was nothing more to say, nothing that she hadn’t heard already from Rogers and Romanoff and the son of Wil; and from her brother. All that was left was what was on his mind.

“I should have been there,” he said softly.

“What could you have done?” she asked, without missing a beat. She knew that all the wishing in the world couldn’t undo what had happened. She’d already accepted that.

In truth, Loki didn’t know. He couldn’t think of anything but Wanda’s face, the devastation in her eyes.

“Something,” he whispered. “Anything. You shouldn’t have had to face that alone.”

Wanda finally looked away from him, trying hide the tears threatening to spill from her eyes. She was silent for a long moment before she finally spoke again.

Her voice was very soft, and there was a vulnerability in it that Loki had never heard before. “When we first became…what we are now, Pietro and I. We thought that we were doing the right thing, working for Strucker. We thought that we were protecting people. But then they found us, brought us here, and I realized…we had been nothing but tools, used to do evil with.”

She finally looked back at Loki again, and there was a pain in her eyes that words could not express. 

“I never wanted to be that again,” she said. “But now…now I feel as if I never stopped being…that.”

Then more than ever, he wanted to comfort her. If she could trust him enough to be this vulnerable with him, when in his mind he had done next to nothing to deserve it, he felt as if he could be more open with her than he could be with anyone else. If only to honor that trust she’d placed in him.

“I know how that feels,” he admitted softly, after a moment’s pause. “To see yourself as one thing, and then…become something else. For a time, I was uncertain if the person that I was existed anymore, or if I could be forgiven for everything that I’ve done. In some ways, I’m still not sure. But there’s nothing more tempting than the desire to be what people think you are. I know now that giving in to that darkness, it’s not worth it. And even if you try to come back from it, there will always be those that still only see that darkness. You, Wanda…you deserve better than that. You deserve forgiveness.”

It was Wanda’s turn to be at a loss for words. What could she say to that? She knew how long it had taken for everyone, even her, to really trust Loki. Some of the team still didn’t really trust him. But it seemed to hit her then and there: was Loki really all that different from her and Pietro? They had both been manipulated, had done terrible things under the impression that what they were doing was right. They were both trying to change for the better, to make up for their past sins.

They were different people now than they had been.

Without stopping to think, to make sense of what she was doing, Wanda leaned across the small gap between them, wrapping her arms around Loki and letting her head settle against his chest. She caught him off guard, and he was surprised for a moment, before he let himself relax and encircled her in his arms in return.

“Thank you, Loki,” she said, finally. “You deserve forgiveness, too.”

Loki was struck speechless. It was the first time anyone had ever said those words to him. Though he knew that Thor believed that, too, even he had never said so aloud.

His heart momentarily stuttered in his chest. He knew that those words carried meaning coming from anyone, and yet somehow they meant even more to him still coming from Wanda. His hand moved him to stroke her hair and cradle the back of her head, and leaned down to gently press his lips to her forehead.

She almost immediately picked her head up to look at him, and for a moment Loki froze; wondering if he had overstepped. He barely had time to finish his thought, let alone speak, before Wanda had seized him by the shoulders and pulled him into a kiss.

He certainly hadn’t been expecting that. Even so, he all but melted into her kiss, his eyes slipping closed as he held her close, wrapping his arms around her.

“A-hem.”

Startled, Wanda broke out of the kiss just as quickly as she had initiated it. The door was still open, and she turned towards the source of the sound, to see a figure standing in the doorway.

“Clint, hi,” she greeted him, color rising in her cheeks as she all but leaped to her feet in a hurry.

A tad belatedly, Loki also turned to face the doorway, giving Barton what he hoped was a casual smile.

Over the span of an instant, Wanda glanced from Clint over to Loki and back again. 

“I can explain.”

“You can tell me later,” Clint told her. “Cap’s calling a team meeting, downstairs. That means you, too, Great Gazoo.”

He gave Loki a pointed look, and the sorcerer in question lifted both of his hands to concede before getting to his feet. 

Wanda slipped past Clint and headed down the hallway, but Clint stayed where he was for a moment longer as Loki calmly made his way over to him.

“I suppose this is the part where you threaten me with bodily harm should I make the mistake of mistreating Wanda in any way?” Loki surmised.

“Oh, I don’t have to,” Clint retorted. “I know she’ll beat your ass herself if you screw up.”

Loki chuckled, with the knowledge that Clint was very right, and the two men headed down the hallway in the same direction Wanda had gone.

“And, for the record,” Clint added. “You’d better consider yourself lucky that it was me who walked in there and not her brother.”


End file.
